


florilegia thremedonia

by aliferlia



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 23:56:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliferlia/pseuds/aliferlia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three five-sentence ficlets for three-word prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chilblains

**Author's Note:**

> "Gaeth/Toverre; letters, gloves, pens," prompted by Chesra.

‘ - and anyway, it’s only a few months, so it’s not as though I’m going off to the farthest reaches of the Ke-Han, you - you silly man, you - and gifts, honestly - this is an expensive pen, you know, and -’

A sharp gust of autumn wind came whirling down through the branches overhead to cut him off mid-sentence; unconcerned, Gaeth reached up to brush a fallen leaf from its bed of black curls and blinked in mild astonishment when Toverre hissed like a cat and reached up to bat him away, then took Toverre’s cold red fingers into his own rough ink-stained hands and determinedly shoved them into a pair of knobbly hand-knitted gloves.

‘Now you have a pen,’ Gaeth explained, as though to a very young child, and lifted Toverre’s fingers briefly to his lips, ‘and now you won’t get chilblains, so there’s no excuse.’

Leaves flickered gold and brown about them as Toverre went first deathly pale, then furiously, frantically red. ‘You could, you abject _idiot_ ,’ he snapped in horrified tones, ‘have just asked me to write.’


	2. Covetousness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Antoinette/Anastasia; raindrops, shoulder, dirty" - prompted by eatingfireflies

Shoes clutched carefully in one hot hand, heart drumming fast and heavy as the raindrops that shook the windowpanes, she padded down the corridor in the white dawn light, hair unpinned and dress half-torn to reveal the bruises on her back, mouth bitten pleasantly numb, head pounding with drink and triumph both. It was not until she was already halfway back to her own chambers that she caught just from the corner of her eye the hem of a dress, all grey-watered silk and white organdie, that she knew particularly well: that she herself would never in her life have worn, but that she coveted with a curiously petty adoration all the same.

Rubbing a lovemark on her shoulder in sudden unease, she stopped and studied for a long moment the breathing girl who slept there in a windowseat, book in hand, one white shoulder displayed sharp-boned and shivering to the world where the sleeve had slipped loose, no warmer behind the thin sheet of glass that kept her from the rain and black rattling branches than she would have been beyond it: for there was no shelter for this girl from any storm, Antoinette realised, not here in her husband’s unfriendly home.

Driven half by a pity she had forgotten she possessed and half by that same covetous urge, she had crossed the corridor before she even understood what she was doing and, kneeling there at the feet of the Esarina of all Volstov, reached up to touch the thin bony shoulder with something like reverence. Her own hands were dirty with last night’s spilled wine, and her lips still tasted of someone else’s, but it made no matter: she leaned in, lips ghosting across goosebumps, and gave back what she had taken.


	3. Still Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Hal/Royston; rain, coffee, octagon," prompted by dani who is very probably the source of all evil

‘Not that I don’t support you trying to expand your interests, love, and I certainly have nothing against modern art,’ Royston called as he blinked down at the windowsill, ‘but is it generally considered good artistic practice to leave one’s illustrations out in the rain?’

Shuffling in from the bedroom, coffee steaming liberally in the rainy air, Hal yawned and mumbled something: then, jolting awake, gave a yelp and scrambled across the room to clutch at the ruined watercolour, wailing, ‘I was up all night trying to paint that - it was supposed to be a still-life, you see, but now it’s _ruined_ -’

‘I would have thought it was more an abstract piece than a still life,’ Royston said, rotating it slowly before adding, ‘Why is there a green octagon in that corner?’

‘It’s supposed to be an _avocado_ ,’ Hal protested, gesturing helplessly to the remains of a very rained-out fruitbowl on the desk.

Royston put the page down, grinning, then, selecting a dry paintbrush from the mess of art supplies, put the tip very gently against the nape of Hal’s neck and trailed it down the length of his spine: said, ‘How about I distract you from your tragic failures, hmm?’


End file.
